Star Trek Discovery Season 5 (Spoilers)

[Crazedwraith]

Fifth and Final Season, folks.

Plenty of TNG references and fanservice here, a little to Picard by way of consequence. This time they are hunting down technology a Romulan found from the Progenitors from TNG's The Chase.

It's got a nice treasure hunt vibe going on.

Tilly's back in the cast, Saru seems to be leaving again. Though hopefully he's staying on the show.

Once again, they don't really get how chains of command with another Captain of much greater seniority than Michael becoming her first officer.

It does still tend a bit too much the characters emoting and shilling each other but it's been reasonably good fun so far.

[bilateralrope]

Once again, they don't really get how chains of command with another Captain of much greater seniority than Michael becoming her first officer.

A captain who had recently faced a disciplinary hearing and chosen to take early retirement instead of facing whatever punishment they decided on. Until Michael wanted him to be her first officer. I'm guessing he got demoted.

[Batman]

I still have no idea what a self-sealing stem bolt is or what it does. (And no, actually seeing one for the first time din't help).

[bilateralrope]

I still have no idea what a self-sealing stem bolt is or what it does. (And no, actually seeing one for the first time din't help).

It probably won't help you to know that this isn't the first time they have been on-screen

[Batman]

It unsurprisingly doesn't but when did we see one before?

[bilateralrope]

They appeared a few times on DS9. That's where the images on memory alpha are from.

Also at least one appearance on Lower Decks.

[NecronLord]

Beyond the slightly silly moment of the ships being belly down - for once I wish they'd used the deflectors, or hovered closer to the city and just bubbled it.

In the spirit of the site, you could get some calcs on kinetic energy and momentum for that landslide.

Very happy to see an orbital phaser strike.

[bilateralrope]

One interesting note is that programmable matter can't be made into wires. If they want wires, they have to use replicators.

Which just adds confusion to me trying to understand the difference between replicating something vs using programmable matter.

[NecronLord]

One assumes it can't precisely make that type of wire, it may be that the conductivity is too low, or too high, or that it channels power through some other means other than electrons - perhaps it transmits weak nuclear force or something - to operate its systems.

[Crazedwraith]

Once again, they don't really get how chains of command with another Captain of much greater seniority than Michael becoming her first officer.

A captain who had recently faced a disciplinary hearing and chosen to take early retirement instead of facing whatever punishment they decided on. Until Michael wanted him to be her first officer. I'm guessing he got demoted.

Oh, hey! You turned out to be right on this front. They're explict referring to him as First Officer and Commander rather than Number One, which is an improvement over previous writing to my thinking.

It's not emphasised much but there are some new names and face among the bridge bunnies. I noticed on, maybe the relief pilot was Bajoran, implying the crew has plenty of 32nd century born members now.

hmm. Trill symbiote life span very rarely stretches to 800 years. That means Dax who was already several hosts deep is extremely likely dead. Also that Tal has no memories of the time frame.

...Trill has some nasty wildlife. Though the plot is pretty standard test of character thing but serviceable enough and takes advantage of Ds9 continuity.

Rayner gets a meet the crew plot, and Saru has an argument with T'Rina. Tbf I found them cuter courting than now as a couple but we are getting more info on the set up on Ni'Var which

[bilateralrope]

Even if Moll and L'ak can track Discovery now, they don't have a spore drive. So it's going to be interesting seeing how they overcome that disadvantage.

That description of what progenitor tech can do makes me wonder just how Cronenberg things will get after someone uses it.

...Trill has some nasty wildlife. Though the plot is pretty standard test of character thing but serviceable enough and takes advantage of Ds9 continuity.

I wonder if the cloaking wildlife caused any complications with the treaty that forbid Federation cloaking devices

[NecronLord]

On the other hand the clues were planted by people with 23rd century warp drive. DASH drive might be instant but it might take Moll and L'ak only hours to cross what took months in C23rd.

[bilateralrope]

On the other hand the clues were planted by people with 23rd century warp drive. DASH drive might be instant but it might take Moll and L'ak only hours to cross what took months in C23rd.

Probably. But they still need to know where they are going when Discovery has the only copy of the next clue and enough firepower that they don't want a ship to ship battle.

[Crazedwraith]

So this weeks plot reveals the krenium were involved in the temporal cold war or at least someone got a hold of their tech. Their even seems to be a oblique reference to Calpyso, those the scenario doesn't line up with that episode exactly.

I think this is a good standalone episode and it's worked well into the arc as well which is nice. It could be a lot more polished and meaningful with the character arcs but servicable nevertheless. Despite travelling through lot of time periods the only old character brought back is Airiam the cyborg.

Still it kind of suffers from the fact the a prodigy did a very similar episode, in half the time. Better to my mind.

[Crazedwraith]

So as it turns out:
Spoiler

L'ak is a breen. Apparently breen can do without a suit but culturally don't as that form is seen as lesser.

We get Moll and L'Ak's back story which is fine and most of the episode is set on a derelict Connie class using SNW sets to save money. All pretty decent but by the book really.

[bilateralrope]

Setting it on a Connie makes sense since they already have the sets. But did they have to use the Enterprise ?

Moll and L'Ak's backstory sound like they would easily qualify as political refugees and the Federation's control over the main source of dilithium for the galaxy probably makes Federation space the safest place to hide from the Breen. Especially if they only need to hide from one faction. Much better than some rumored paradise planet in the gamma quadrant.

Certainly better than fleeing in some modified torpedo because they don't have a ship. Though I can't say that it's an out of character move for them.

[bilateralrope]

Someone needs to tell Culber that he's not the only person to have experienced the Zhian'tara. That he probably should look for answers in what previous participants have said about it.

[Crazedwraith]

And tell Burnham and Tilly to get full details on a ritual before triggering it. Seriously.

Pretty standard episode though. Didn't click with me so it took a few attempts to get through.

[bilateralrope]

Or they could have done a full scan of the planet before beaming down to a pre-warp civilization.

[Batman]

(Bats is only up to ep5, sorry) so 31st (or whenever Disco is now) century photorps no longer use matter/antimatter for the kaboom. (makes sense, antimatter isn't exactly the easiest nor safest reactant to handle). Nice reverse use of the tractor beam there. And so that's what Breen look like underneath. Only weren't those Bossk suits be said to be cooling suits in DS9? The Breen look reptilian, and reptiles generally don't do so well with cold.

[bilateralrope]

Only weren't those Bossk suits be said to be cooling suits in DS9? The Breen look reptilian, and reptiles generally don't do so well with cold.

Note that the Breen seem to be in their transparent glowing form inside the suits. That goes beyond what we know of biology.

I'm guessing that they are more comfortable at colder temperatures in that form.

[Crazedwraith]

etrigah - spoilery thoughts

Man, Raynor is really well versed in his DS9, fitting since his species came from it. His plan is straight out of Kira's playbook in Emissary and the Romulan expression "Never turn your back on a breen" is from In Purgatory's Shadow/Inferno's Light as well.
I'm surprised they didn't need to switch up the clue teams, I felt like Book's courier experience would have come in handy for knowing the library. But another DS 9 reference with it being in the Badlands.

T'Rina as the prime mover and shaker here was very interesting and fitting they end up going with the more pragmatic decision to give Moll over than the more idealistic one which this show has often gone with.

Still kind of bummed that we didn't get more than one line about Saru and he was neither there nor Burnham and T'Rina didn't have time for a personal conversation about him. I really hope we see him again before the end. I guess it's cost saving measure, but hard look for Doug Jones, not that I suppose he's not in demand.

I liked this one at lot more than the previous week, the main plot is picking up speed again for the final few episodes.

[Crazedwraith]

accidental double post. see above

random thought: native 32nd century ships are not growing on me appearance wise.

that breen dreadnought was huge and felt as out of place to me as lower deck's orion one.

[bilateralrope]

that breen dreadnought was huge and felt as out of place to me as lower deck's orion one.

I found this one more out of place because of the burn. They weren't a major power during the burn, so they haven't found a way to avoid using dilithium or some source that the Federation doesn't know about. So how are they powering something that huge ?

There were two other interesting details:
- Raynor's plan to make Fed HQ seem like it a larger armament that it does wouldn't do anything about the size difference
- Everyone acted like the four Federation ships showing up was significant

The only way those make sense is if everyone thinks Federation vessels pack more firepower per volume than that dreadnought. I'm wondering if it's a warship or if it's more of a city ship because primarchs who set themselves up on a planet tend to get blown up.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

This week the weapons on the dreadnaught knocked the shields of the Discovery to 30% a couple(?) shots, roughly what the Badlands did in like a few events, which is impressive but probably the dreadnaught's firepower isn't up to its size considering how massive it was.
Additionally the dreadnaught has a lot of empty space.

Still, based on examples like the battle with Control and the battle with the Emerald Chain's main ship in DISCO, where size mattered a lot, it seems that it's just strange how Starfleet expected to defend itself using only a handful of ships.